


Unexpected Kindness

by HiddenTohru



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-20
Updated: 2010-07-20
Packaged: 2017-10-10 16:57:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/101990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiddenTohru/pseuds/HiddenTohru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>King Alistair and Queen Anora share a little private time post - final battle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unexpected Kindness

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in January 2010.

The rain was running through his hair, down his back and making a sodden mess of his armor padding, but he didn't care. He stared off into the distance toward Fort Drakon. It was there he had last seen her, had witnessed that fateful moment when his greatest enemy had made the ultimate sacrifice for the good of Ferelden. He had seen her gripping her sword, ready to finish it in case Loghain had failed, and had been unable to speak, to call her name, to stop her, but it had not mattered. The old warrior had destroyed the archdemon and himself, and she had allowed her blade to fall to the stone of the tower as the remaining soldiers raised a shout of triumph at the Old God's death. How he had wanted to go to her then, to beg her to stay. Loghain was dead, and while he wasn't sure he could forgive her for sparing him and letting him become a hero, it didn't matter as much as having her with him. Time would heal that wound, he just wanted her for himself.

Things had not gone that way, however. Even as he steeled himself to approach her, to sweep her into his arms (and let that damn bard woman say what she would), she had turned and seen him. The look on her face had been a horrible mixture of surprise and pity. She had shaken her head, knowing already what he'd planned to do. She had taken Leliana's hand then, resolutely, and led her lover past the future King of Ferelden. She had left her blade and him behind, discarded relics of the battle she had fought so hard to win, and he had wondered then if his heart would ever truly recover.

"Alistair? Maker's Breath, don't you have the sense to come out of the rain?" Anora put her hand on her hip as she gazed at her new husband from the doorway, then sighed in an exasperated way. "If your armor rusts, not only will the steward scold you, we'll never get you out of it. Come inside."

He shook his head, his throat too thick with memories for him to trust his voice. She sighed again and came out into the rain, grasping his gauntleted hand and leading him inside. He let her, feeling like little more than a child as he stared back toward the Fort and his memories of the love who had gotten away.

"You're an absolute mess. What do you think people would say, to see the King soaked to the skin? You must think of these things now." She began to remove his armor with an expert hand, long accustomed to such things as the daughter of Ferelden's greatest general. After the metal plates were off and set on the armor stand to be dried by a maid, she began stripping off the padding, warming his chilled skin with her hands as she did so.

He caught one of her hands as she reached to remove his undershirt. "I'm sorry. It's just... I feel lost. She was everything to me. Even after we separated, I spent all my time with her, and I couldn't stop loving her. Even after she spared... your father." He stumbled a bit over the sensitive subject, but he couldn't leave it be. "I don't understand why she left me."

Anora looked into the eyes of this man, so like a child in his ways. She thought then about Cailan, and wondered how two men could be so similar and so different at the same time. "It will get easier, my husband. I will help you, you know. Even if ours is just a marriage of convenience, we can still be kind to each other." She drew a towel from the nearby washstand and draped it over his shoulders, rubbing it over his muscles to warm him further.

Alistair had not expected kindness from her. Somehow, it broke something inside him, and he found himself clinging to her, sobbing. It had been too much, too soon, to have his entire life change in one moment, to end up with a woman he barely knew while the one he loved traveled too far away. She would never be his again, he knew that now, and at least here was someone willing to comfort him.

She stroked his hair as he cried, pushing away momentary thoughts about tear stains on her silk dress and allowing her King his weakness. She wondered then if she would ever be done taking care of childish Kings, but that was also a thought for another time. When he was done, she gently finished removing his wet clothing and called a servant to set up a hot bath. It certainly would not do for the King of Ferelden to catch his death in the first week of his reign. Their reign, she admonished herself. For better or worse, they were in this together now_**.**_

 


End file.
